In my opinion, the greatest contributors to the persistence of PDF apart
from Adobe’s ruthlessly effective strategizing & marketing are the absence
of viable document portability features in native platforms such as HTML and
the organisational cultures in which information is produced (it’s perhaps
not surprising that all layers of government in Australia are among PDF’s
most prolific users)
The use cases for PDF on the web are very narrow and even the all-too-common
and most spirited defences of its utility do not hold up to much scrutiny.
Any content that originates in another format can just as readily be
delivered using HTML and pixel perfect printing is similarly achievable
using HTML, CSS, & JavaScript.
I don’t believe that finding accommodations to manage the persistence &
predominance of PDF on the web is the only or most effective approach – this
has been going on for some time, now, with mixed results.
It seems to me that seeking alternatives & making the case for changing how
things are done will be ultimately more effective in making the web more
accessible rather than applying endless Band-Aids to a limping technology.
Congratulations to IBM … to paraphrase Kant: enlightenment is freedom from
nonage.
From: Howard Leicester [mailto:howard_leicester@btconnect.com]
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 7:02 AM
To: 'Elizabeth J. Pyatt'; 'Olaf DrÃ¼mmer'
Cc: 'WAI Interest Group'; 'Wayne Dick'; accessys@smart.net; 'John Foliot';
'Duff Johnson'; 'Thompson, Rachel'
Subject: RE: PDF accessibility guidelines. WAS: Re: PDF's and Signatures
Intrested, of course, in this thread – thanks to All.
Wondering, though, if it is coming through in the WAI work group activities.
I suspect not.
Howard
(Leicester,
Kent, UK).
_____
From: Elizabeth J. Pyatt [mailto:ejp10@psu.edu]
Sent: 25 January 2015 15:35
To: Olaf DrÃ¼mmer
Cc: WAI Interest Group; Wayne Dick; accessys@smart.net; John Foliot; Duff
Johnson; Thompson, Rachel
Subject: Re: PDF accessibility guidelines. WAS: Re: PDF's and Signatures
Creating a tagged is just the first step to creating an accessible PDF. It
needs to be verified and often tweaked in a repair tool like Adobe Acrobat
or CommonLook. This part remains tricky.
I wish it weren't true, because many people want to just use a PDF.
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 24, 2015, at 7:02 AM, Olaf DrÃ¼mmer <olaflist@callassoftware.com>
wrote:
On 24 Jan 2015, at 07:31, Wayne Dick <waynedick@knowbility.org> wrote:
3. Educate faculty to the need to preparing accessible content. Teaching
accessible use of their word processor is most effective.
there is one thing I always fail to get:
- I think it is a fair assumption that faculty tend to use a word processor
to prepare papers for their courses
- typical word processors are let's say OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer or
Microsoft Word
- in this context, there are at least the following ways to provide those
papers in electronic form:
[1] as a word processor file (and share via email or web site)
[2] exported to [tagged] PDF (and share via email or web site)
[3] exported to HTML (and share via email or web site)
Now, which of these work well?
[1] and [2] would work easily for the author and the student. [3] I simply
do not know how to do it such that it works well for both sides, word
processor documents and HTML to me seem to be from different universes. But
maybe I am missing something here? [I can easily proven to be wrong, just
send me a non-trivial paper in HTML, exported from a typical word
processor…]
Olaf